


Out of Sight

by halfpenny



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-16
Updated: 2012-08-16
Packaged: 2017-11-12 07:07:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfpenny/pseuds/halfpenny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She made it halfway through a bottle of Jim Bean before it got the upper hand. Sawyer’s favorite. Her last thought before passing out on the bathroom floor was that he would have been proud of her. Sawyer was so damn romantic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Sight

 

_prelude_

            The night after he first makes love to Kate is the first night Sawyer doesn’t dream about Cassidy. He loves Kate, he knows he does. He has to love her. He loves her voice and her hands and he loves that she’s a crook like him, but mostly he thinks that if he loves her enough, then the dreams will stop. And for one night, they do. But the next night when he closes his eyes with Kate an arm’s length away, they’re back. He’s standing in a kitchen in Albuquerque with a baby in his arms. Cassidy sits at the wooden kitchen table writing in a spiral-bound notebook like she did after every con they ran. Her hair is loose the way Sawyer likes it and she looks so pretty that he can’t help but kiss her right on the top of her head. She smiles at him and stretches out her arms to take Clementine. He gives her the baby and she stands up from the table. She is heavily pregnant, the thin fabric of her dress stretched taut across her belly. Sawyer looks at his two girls and the one on the way and he kisses Cassidy again and she sighs into his neck and he wakes shaking in the middle of the dark jungle. They’re only dreams, after all. He loves Kate. He has to.

 

_out of sight_

            Cassidy wasn’t normally one to read the newspaper on a daily basis, but it was a slow Friday morning and Clementine was in the family room watching a cartoon rabbit make a fool of Elmer Fudd and her shift as a receptionist at Sacred Heart Hospital didn’t start until the afternoon, so she plunked down at the kitchen table, stirred her coffee, and flipped through the Albuquerque Gazette. She wasn’t one to read articles about plane crashes either. She preferred the human-interest angle, stories about local families finding the Virgin Mary’s face in their porridge. But as her eyes scanned the names of those missing from Flight 815 from Sydney to L.A., there was his name, blank ink stark against the white page. James “Sawyer” Ford. Her coffee cup ended up in pieces on the linoleum and Cassidy had to explain to her baby girl that Mommy was crying because she’d read a sad story and not to worry, go back and play in the other room.

            She called the newspaper, which transferred her to the airline, which connected her to the Coast Guard search and rescue outfit. She gave a description and said she didn’t have a photograph to send them, which wasn’t true but damned if she was going to give up the only picture Clem had of her daddy. When they asked her relationship to Mr. Ford, she told them as much of the truth as they needed. He was the father of her child and she loved him. They thanked her, told her to be prepared for the worst, and that they’d call when they knew for sure.

            That was three months ago. The Coast Guard did phone to inform her that they were officially concluding the search three weeks after she’d read the article. That night, Cassidy asked Caitlin, a friend from the hospital, to cover her at work, dropped her daughter off at a neighbor’s house, and drank until she was sick. She made it halfway through a bottle of Jim Bean before it got the upper hand. Sawyer’s favorite. Her last thought before passing out on the bathroom floor was that he would have been proud of her. Sawyer was so damn romantic.

            Cassidy did her best to put the whole incident out of her mind. She must have done a pretty good job of it, because when two blue-suited Oceanic Airlines representatives arrived at her front door to inform her that the survivors of Flight 815 had been recovered and James Ford was among them, she passed out cold. Ruined another good coffee cup, too.

            They were in Hawaii, twenty miles outside of Honolulu in the previously abandoned Stardust Motel, a relic of the 1960s tourism boom. Sawyer was in room B12. He was slated to spend another day in debrief before being restricted to the hotel premises while the investigation continued. One of the suits offered to call Sawyer’s room for her. She said no, thank you very much and then politely pushed the nice gentlemen out of her house. Once she heard their car start outside, she called Caitlin to see if she could watch Clem for a couple days. She had business out of town.

            There were six Stardust Motels listed in the Honolulu phone book. The first three Cassidy checked didn’t even have a room B12. The fourth had a ring of television broadcast vans and photographers lingering around a newly constructed chair-wire fence. No one noticed another rental car parked across the street.

            It was disturbingly easy to get inside. Sawyer used to say it was all about the walk. If you look like you know where you’re going, nobody’s going to stop you. And nobody did. Cassidy waltzed right into the lobby and held the elevator door for an Asian couple and an enormously fat man.

            The woman, a delicate-looking thing, said, “So Jack and Kate are sharing a room now?”

            The fat man replied, “Dude, that’s what I heard from the maid.”

            Cassidy stepped off when the elevator doors banged open. She heard the woman sigh, “Poor Sawyer.” Cassidy whirled around, but the doors were already shut. The walk down the hallway to B12 felt about a half mile long.

            She stood in from of his door with her hands deep in her jeans pockets. There was a steady stream of muted noise coming from inside, a TV left on, and Cassidy wondered for the first time of Sawyer hadn’t already left. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d skipped out to avoid inconvenient questions. Or a woman.

            She knocked. A muffled voice called, “It’s open,” and Cassidy felt every nerve spark and fizz as she stepped into the room. Empty service trays and dirty dishes littered the carpet and sure enough, the TV’s soft bluish light flooded the room. The volume was turned up and Cassidy recognized a smiling woman trying to sell liquid dishwashing detergent. “Just leave the bottle. And write yourself a nice tip. This one’s on the good people at Oceanic.” He was in the bathroom. The door was half-closed, but Cassidy could hear soft splashing coming from behind it. She craned her neck to peek at the mirror inside, and reflected there was Sawyer, lying in the shallow tub.

            The orange light of the bathroom tinted his hair a darker blond than she remembered. It was short, too, neatly slicked back and damp. His head was tipped back against the garish tile of the wall and his eyes were closed. Cassidy took advantage of the opportunity to drink in the sight of him. His chest and arms were deeply tanned in sharp contrast to the paleness of his legs. A single candle flickered next to the shampoo on the edge of the tub. He sighed and his throat flexed and everything in Cassidy tightened.

            “Hello Sawyer.” He jolted upright, spilling water onto the dingy bathmat. Sawyer gaped up at her and Cassidy wished, not for the first time, she was wearing a stunning dress and heels instead of blue jeans and a ratty Sacred Heart t-shirt. “How’ve you been?”

            Slowly, that old Sawyer grin slid into place as he flashed his dimples. “Well, hello Cassidy. I’m just back from a little beach vacation. How’re you?”

            Cassidy replied automatically. “Good. Clem keeps me busy, but –” The smile fell off Sawyer’s face as Cassidy cursed inwardly. He was all business now as she lowered the toilet lid and sat down.

            “How’d you get in here anyhow?” She raised an eyebrow and he held up his hands. “Sorry, withdraw the question.”

            “Frankly, I’m surprised you’re still here.”

            “Well, this time, I didn’t do a thing wrong. Government’s a touch more interested in our pretty little island fugitive. She and the doc are holed up downstairs like it’s the damn Alamo.”

            “Kate.” It wasn’t a question. He nodded.

            “Do you love her?” Cassidy concentrated very hard on breathing in and out.

            Sawyer glared. “What do you want from me?”

            “Right now, just an answer. Do you love Kate?” In her mind, Cassidy was already out the door, down the hall, and driving back to the airport, cursing herself for being for being five kinds of a fool for coming here.

            “I had to, Cass.” He sounded defeated and for some reason, that infuriated her.

            “Had to? You had to love her? What did they do, hold a gun to your head and force you?”           

            That got a reaction. Saywer’s face darkened. “You don’t know nothin’ about it.” And the worst part, Cassidy realized, was that she didn’t. She didn’t know what happened, if he’d even thought about her, if he and this Kate would be happy together and damn it, she would not cry in front of him.

            She stood up on shaky legs and mumbled, “I’m sorry” as she reached for the door and the rental car and the plane ticket home, but he was quicker than her. He snaked a hand around her knee and held it tightly, his wide palm wet on the denim.

            “Cassidy, ” he said and she closed her eyes against the slow pull in her belly. “Cassie, c’mon girl, don’t just up and leave me.” It should have sounded suave and careless, but his voice hitched at the end and his hand was trembling on her leg, so she stopped. He rubbed his thumb back and forth across the worn fabric behind her knee and she swayed in place, eyes shut tight.

            He sighed as he moved his hand over her calf, up the back of her thigh to hook his fingers into her pocket. He tugged and she sank to the wet floor. He pushed a hand through her hair, leaving a trail of moisture behind. Cassidy felt the tepid water trickling down the back of her shirt and then she kissed Sawyer and he moaned into her mouth and everything disappeared into that sound.

            She slipped off her sandals and slung one leg over the side of the tub before Sawyer knew what was happening. She settled herself against him as water seeped through her jeans. She leaned down to catch his mouth again, but he stopped her. He framed her face in his hands, ran his fingers over her mouth, chin, neck, shoulders, down her back and up again to strip off her shirt. “Cassidy,” he said and pressed a kiss between her breasts. Cassidy laid her cheek on top of his head as he pulled down her zipper.

            It took a few wet, fumbling tries to get out of the soaked jeans while Sawyer did his best to distract her by nipping at her collarbone, but they managed. Cassidy could hear the buzzing of the TV in the room outside and the water was starting to get cold, but none of it mattered because Sawyer kissed her ear and pushed into her. She sucked in her breath and he gripped her hips as he shifted under her.

            She remembered this, or at least her body did because they fell into stroke together like they did this every day, like her world wasn’t ending each time he bit his lip, like he’d never stopped loving her and maybe he hadn’t because there was something like awe in his voice when he whispered _Cassidy_ against her skin. 

            She arched into him as he dipped a hand below the water. He certainly hadn’t lost his touch, beach vacation or not, and between him and the swirling water, it wasn’t long before she broke apart. He held one strong arm around her back while the aftershocks rippled through her. He waited like a saint until her breathing slowed to lose himself in her. She smiled when he grunted and bit down on her shoulder as he came. He’d remembered that this was her favorite part. Imagine that.

            When she woke up later, it was dark outside. Her hair and the sheets were still damp, and she was alone in the bed. For a panicked moment, Cassidy thought he’d left, but she heard a noise in the bathroom. Gathering the sheet around her, she followed the sound of his voice to the doorframe, where she listened. Sawyer was talking to someone. 

            “…understand that people didn’t know no better back then. My Grampa smoked three packs a day right up to the day he died. But point is, don’t you ever start that nonsense. Listen to your mama, she’ll tell you.” Cassidy peeked in.

            Sawyer sat on the floor next to her crumpled jeans. He held a photograph in front of him and Cassidy’s wallet dangled at his side. Cassidy only carried two pictures with her: one of her and Sawyer taken at a county fair in a podunk little town just outside Atlanta and a snapshot of Clementine. She watched as Sawyer stared down at his daughter.

            Eventually, he noticed her and stuffed the picture back into the plastic sleeve between the folds of the wallet. Cassidy stepped between his knees and curved her back to his chest. He rubbed her arms in long, slow strokes. She tipped her head back on his shoulder and asked, “Would you like to meet her?”

            Sawyer stopped mid-caress. “And just who would I tell her I am?” Cassidy pulled his face to hers for a kiss.

            “You’d tell her the truth, that her daddy wanted to see her.” Sawyer scoffed, but she continued. “She’d recognize you from your picture anyway.”

            There was a lengthy pause before Sawyer cleared his throat and said, “She’s…she’s seen my picture?” If Cassidy didn’t know better, she’d think he sounded scared.

            “It’s up on the mantle.” Cassidy waited for a response before adding, “You’ve just survived a plane crash on a desert island in the South Pacific. She’s a four year old girl.”            

            Sawyer tried to shift away from her, but Cassidy leaned back and pressed him into the wall. “But what, ” he started in a small voice, “What if she…” He trailed off and now it was Cassidy who ran her hands over his arms until some of the tension left his body. “My daddy, he…he wasn’t…hell, Cassie, she’s just a little girl. I don’t wanna screw up her life.”

            Cassidy twisted around and planted a kiss on his nose. “Do you love her?”

            Sawyer rolled his eyes. “I ain’t even met her.”

            “That’s not what I asked.”

            Sawyer opened his mouth, then closed it again. He scrubbed a hand over his chin where Cassidy noticed the beginnings of a beard creeping in, and nodded. She smiled and smoothed back his hair. “C’mon.” Cassidy pulled Sawyer to his feet and perched on the bed, watching him pack. They slipped out the back entrance without a problem. Sawyer didn’t say good-bye to any of the other survivors. Cassidy decided not to comment.

 He didn’t say a word in the car on the way to the airport or on the long flight home. It was nearly midnight when Cassidy pulled the key out of her car’s ignition. Through the front windows, she could see a light in the kitchen. Saint Caitlin must have stayed late. Cassidy listened to the cooling engine as it clicked and popped while she waited for Sawyer to speak. When she looked over, his face was perfectly still as stared ahead at nothing. Cassidy reached across the gearshift and grasped Sawyer by the hand. He looked up and his smile was brittle. “Cass, I don’t know if –” he began, but stopped as Cassidy pressed her finger to his lips. She tugged him out of the car and up the front steps. She heard him take a breath as she eased the front door open.

“Don’t worry,” Cassidy whispered to Sawyer as he stepped inside. “We’re home.”

 


End file.
